Thursday, 17 December 2015

Here – courtesy of Michael Cumming – are three candid shots from the production period of the 3rd series of 'Toast of London'.
Storyboards on location and a moment between takes for Matt Berry, enjoying a certain book.

Tuesday, 8 December 2015

Here's a lovely film by my oldest pal Michael Cumming – see my last post for link to his site;a collective exercise in memory that marked the 50th anniversary of our old secondary school back home in Windermere.There is a sequence that involves some illustrative content by yours truly, within the Art Block area that kick-started both Michael's and my own creative careers – see below – as well as snippets of a commentary that I contributed alongside a selection of fellow alums. The neat conceit that MC imposed was that our past recollections be spoken by current pupils.

You had to be there?I don't think so – what MC's done is speak eloquently of a certain time in all of our lives.

An empty vessel; the unlovely building, which we filled with life, mapped with our whispers, frowns, hope and footsteps, racing or dragged along echoing corridors between classrooms, cloakrooms, stairwells.

Marking our times.

Outside, seen with yearning through window glass across the seasons; the distant fire of new flowers, fresh mown grass below hazed air full of drifting dust and dandelion seeds, dancing leaves in gusting winds, dank fog over brittle crusted snows. Inside, a language of the senses;

thick gravy boiling up as the crust of a steak and kidney pie was first breached and portions allocated.

Early victories and defeats and pointless anxieties, before experience gave us a sense of proportion.

Walking the foot slopes of volcanic puberty, stumbling towards our future selves. The suggestion of how life would be hanging ahead of us, but only ever a pencil sketch, an impression, a rumour, a misheard piece of gossip.

At school they teach you the names for things, but the most powerful of all are the names of those that we learn from and alongside.

In the grounds of Castle Toast – here courtesy of Director Michael Cumming – we see a visiting American dignitary exposing the smoke and mirrors – or in this case glass and paint – of 'the business they call show'.

And here be the creative powerhouses – or rather three mad men – who bring it all to the screen:

Monday, 7 December 2015

Sometimes a particular frame of a storyboard pleases me.
Here is such; setting up the absurd sequence wherein Toast, banjaxed by Jon Hamm's hypnotic 'chari-S-muuuuuuuuuuh' can be seen mooning after him across Meard Street.

After the unexpected events at Gonville's bedside the Brothers Toast engage in a little sibling pugilism, and Steven takes another tumble, courtesy of stunt Toast and digital layers - adding many storeys to the tower.
If you click on the final shots looking downwards the simple electrickery devised by Director Michael Cumming to insert vertiginous depth is clearer to see.Clever boy.

As an additional job via the delightful Rosy Thomas, Designer for the series, I was asked to visualise the Somerset residence of Steven Toast's father, Gonville, as played by Brian Blessed. It is to this location that the masonry (& love-) struck Toast travels with the preposterous guest star that week, actor Jon Hamm.

Here are my original doodles and final version - later used by Michael May as the basis of the old school glass painting seen on-screen. Do click on the image to get the full detail.

NB - Original plans for a glass painting of B. Blessed were abandoned as they kept shattering when he shouted.

The latest in the current 3rd series of Arthur Mathew's and Matt Berry's'Toast of London' probably represented the most work for me of the lot.

Regards storyboards, physical stunts abounded, and – as I witnessed when visiting the set – demanded that a number of deceptively complex problems be solved, from collapsing stairs to plummeting masonry (free masonry?) to a fall down 200 steps in 'the world's tallest castle'.

Here is the first, spliced from original boards and still frames.
Toast descends for breakfast – in more ways than one.

Tuesday, 1 December 2015

And here – as hurtles across terrestrial screens in compressed fashion, or more sympathetically with the 4OD online version – is what's known in certain circles as: 'the money shot'.
Though it's not on every episode.

Sunday, 29 November 2015

More here from my work on Series 3 of 'Toast of London'.
With the working title of 'Miss World', this tale veered from sleazy '70s beauty contest cattle-marketry to the sex war politics of Pussy Rioting, while leavened with a touching romance for Steven T along the way.
Guest turns of the week from Vic Reeves as 'Compére' and Paul Whitehouse as Vic Titball.

When Director Michael Cumming and I convened in swinging Highgate to plot the storyboard – my first submitted work during pre-production – the technically-demanding sequence wherein Toast and Ed find themselves on an impromptu 'lamping' jaunt with Vic Titball was the focus.
Below initial board frames are spliced with the filmed action.
Angles and compositions differ - for either dramatic or technical purposes - but the intent is there.
For instance, the braining of Toast with slaughtered rabbits occurs in a much tighter shot, as do Ed's shotgun potshots. Click on separate frames to get a closer view.

We begin with Ed (Robert Bathurst) and Vic (Paul W) in the front of the vehicle, cutting to the vehicle hurtling across fields, then Toast's confused reactions, then startled fauna, gunshots and resulting mayhem.
All in a day's work.

No animals – or thespians – were injured in the filming/drawing – of this sequence.